


Fireside Chats

by ziusura



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 17:15:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4188177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziusura/pseuds/ziusura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Fallow Mire had a way of beating someone down, and Edric felt guilty about bringing The Iron Bull.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fireside Chats

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in love with dwarves and there's so little fic of them here so here I am. 
> 
> I'm using the automatic male dwarf name "Edric," but it's my OC…also named Edric. Because I accidentally clicked through without renaming after the customization and I wasn't going to go through the trouble of remaking him haha. And of course I forgot what I was going to name him originally so. Edric it is.

The Fallow Mire had a way of beating one down. The smell of decay and burning bodies was constantly shifting; any time Edric thought he’d finally gotten used to the smell, the next batch of fumes had him taking in shorter, shallower breaths through his mouth. The putrid water soaked him up to his armpits—he was almost scared his glowing hand would rot clear off if he didn’t hold his arms up above his head whenever the bridges or roads broke or fell down into the swamp below—and the constant rainy mist chilled him to his bones without ever making him feel more clean. 

A week into their travels and Dorian had stopped hovering naked over his soaking robes at camp, aggressively trying to dry them with his own fire magic; he’d started throwing them with the rest of their clothes by the fire with the same vain hope that they’d be drier come morning, before slipping exhausted into his damp sleeping furs. Sera still had her nightly animatedly-pacing-and-occasionally-kicking-things-with-a-constant-stream-of-curses-at-undead ritual, but her energy was lower, and her shoulders had a tightness in them that never seemed to go away. 

And The Iron Bull…Edric’s stomach fluttered whenever his eyes landed on Bull’s hulking form, which they did often to his embarrassment, but after days in this Maker forsaken place, the flutters didn’t stay for long. Bull was where he usually was after they made camp—sitting by the campfire with his equally huge axe in his lap, cleaning and maintaining his equipment—only now he’d have moments staring blankly at his lap, his hand clenched tightly around the polishing cloth and stilled over his weapon. 

Edric shouldn’t have brought him—shouldn’t have brought any of them really, but especially not Bull. Cassandra’s and Blackwall’s armor would’ve been ill-suited to the damp pervasive bog, but at least fighting undead, fighting demons wouldn’t have killed their spirit like this. Bull would hate him for thinking it; Bull loved a good fight and he did what needed to be done regardless of fear. Bull would never be a liability when facing enemies like this, but that didn’t mean Edric was ready to see the way it wore Bull down. 

Bull was in one of those moods when Edric reached the campfire and started stripping off his leathers. Early on, when it was only Edric and the very bottoms of the others’ clothes that were soaked through, Bull would point at Edric’s smallclothes and joke with a salacious wink, but not now. Edric stripped nearly naked and set his armor out to dry, lifted one end of Bull’s two handed axe and slid under it to sit as close to Bull as he could, all without a single word from Bull. 

Edric’s mouth was dry, didn’t know the words to say to comfort Bull and the uncertainty left his mouth cotton, but he’d always been more of the action type anyway. 

Edric slid his hand across Bull’s back, barely touching the skin until his arm would go no further, and then he pressed firmly against Bull’s back near his side, the muscles underneath shifting enough for Edric to know that Bull was listening.

“Hey,” he said, and winced when his voice cracked. He licked his lips and nudged Bull’s thigh with his knee, more in an attempt to steady himself than get Bull’s undivided attention. “Hey,” he tried again, and smiled softly when it came out steady. 

Bull’s hand released the polishing cloth and stretched out before settling back onto the axe, and Edric moved slightly with Bull’s chest as he breathed in deep. His horns moved in Edric’s peripherals, and Edric turned his head to meet Bull’s eye. Edric was greeted with a tight, but genuine smile, and a whispered _Kadan_ that was more breath than noise. 

“I placed your furs down in the tent,” Bull said as he snaked his arm around Edric and pulled him in closer. 

Edric nodded once and said, “I saw.” Bull had probably already picked up on the fact that Edric was not pleased with being unable to carry his own supplies through the swamp lest they get soaked, but Edric was grateful for how close they were sitting, the excuse it gave him if Bull asked him about his inability to meet Bull’s eye then; neck cricks were far too common with their heights. 

Bull hummed and began to rub his thumb lightly across Edric’s bare side in sweeping arcs. If they’d been feeling less like…The Fallow Mire, it might’ve led to something more, but exhaustion and cold sunk deep into their bones, so Edric only sighed and leaned in closer. Bull hummed again.

“This…has been hard,” Edric stuttered out, cutting off his sentence before the _for you_ could slip out unbidden. He didn’t know if Bull’s Ben-Hassrath training went as far as to predict what Edric hadn’t said, but he hoped not; Edric almost said a lot of stupid things.

Bull’s thumb stilled, and Edric’s breath caught in his throat. 

“Definitely not the kind of hard I like best,” Bull said evenly, and his thumb resumed its movement. Edric’s answering laugh sounded forced.

“I bet you wish you’d picked up the bow like Sera,” Bull continued. “Not so much need to step in the swamp water that way.” 

“And leave you alone in the water to fight the undead?”

Bull laughed, a deep thing that was real but not anything close to joyfully throwing his head back like he usually does, and Edric grinned in response. 

“Maybe you’d stop popping out of nowhere to steal my kills.” 

“My head’s even with the water level—I haven’t needed to use that ability once.” 

“We should cut the legs off of the undead and strap them to your legs like stilts. Maybe then you’d be able to actually hit them in the head with your little knives.” 

Edric pinched Bull’s back for that and Bull started laughing so hard he dislodged where Edric was sitting, but he didn’t mind so much, not when the twinkle was back in Bull’s eye. 

“That sounds like something Sera would say,” Edric said as he stood up, dusting soil off his ass while he went.

Bull set his axe down off to the side and pulled Edric between his knees by the hand. They were nearly the same height this way.

“She may have mentioned it that time you sunk completely under the water.” 

Edric flushed, his cheeks and neck heating up in a way that only made him more embarrassed. 

“I tripped! I’m not nearly that short.” 

Bull’s smirk made him blush harder, and Edric made himself stay there and look Bull in the face, not run away to his furs to hide like he wanted to. Edric was not innocent in the least, but Bull made him feel so new at everything.

“You keep saying that, but I’m well aware of what part of my body your head reaches and the water was cock height on me.” 

Edric blushed for a different reason then, but it wasn’t time for that. Not in The Fallow Mire. 

They both seemed to come to the same conclusion because Bull’s grin began to fade, and Edric started noticing the aches and sticky dampness that had plagued him since the first day in the swamp. 

Edric still wasn’t any good at this…this comforting thing, this Iron Bull thing, but he’d been able to erase the worry and guilt for a few seconds, and maybe that was enough. More than anything he’d like to ask Iron Bull if he was okay, and maybe fix it, but words like that never came to him easily, and if Bull did actually give him an answer Edric wasn’t sure he’d be able to do anything for him anyway. It might not ever get better, not until they were out of The Fallow Mire, not until Corypheus was in the ground for good.

It must have shown on his face, or maybe Bull’s Ben-Hassrath stuff was just as good as Bull claimed, because Bull tightened his grip on Edric’s hands slightly, and pulled Edric even closer. Their lips met chastely without preamble, with the sort of ease they shouldn’t be capable of in a place like this, with water borne plagues and death and decay.

“We’re okay, Kadan,” Bull said against Edric’s lips, and Edric truly relaxed for the first time since they’d started this trek. 

Bull was okay, and so was Edric.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll probably [write more things](http://stoneanddragons.tumblr.com) so feel free to prompt me so I can get this guy's voice down (because it is definitely not down aaha). Or tell me about your dwarf OCs (or adaar I also love them) bc I love them on [my main](http://ziusura.tumblr.com).


End file.
